• hotbathenthusiast@feddit.de
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    4
    ·
    edit-2
    1 year ago

    China has risen way less in terms of GDP per capita, even using power purchasing parity estimates. Japan is at 52k $, China only at 23k (Wikipedia).

    I cannot ultimately judge this but the common wisdom about the Chinese social contract seems to be that the citizens get comparatively high economic security for comparatively low civil liberties. And while China’s pro-poor growth has certainly been more than impressive historically, I am not sure that the comparatively still low incomes especially in the inner parts of China are sufficient to maintain this social contract if growth does really slow down significantly.

    Edit: I agree in general though that the state of Japan is probably not be as bad as it is made out to be in the article.

    • zerfuffle
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      1
      ·
      edit-2
      1 year ago

      Japan also came out of WW2 heavily industrialized and never had to pay China war reparations despite the atrocities committed during the war and the extreme damage done to China’s economic engine at the time.

      Not really an identical comparison.